Kerry's "Letter from Australia" - September 2007Well we met a very tired but very happy Holly back on her coach from her adventure holiday by the beach about 2 hours away. She had a fabulous time. We had visited her on the Sunday (the holiday was from Tuesday to the following Wednesday) at the camp, all parents were invited for lunch and to stay for 2 hours. She showed us around her dorm room and introduced us to her newly found friends from different schools in the Yarra Valley region. They also had a roster of work that each girl had to do, including cleaning the bathroom. Amazing. It must of come as a shock to Holly that the cleaning fairies don’t come in the middle of the night and clean up as they do at home!! The point of the holidays is to build self esteem and confidence and they have certainly done this for Holly. Along with the new found skill of making her own bed. She did rowing, archery, assault course, high ropes course, orienteering, rock climbing, bush cooking, drama, biking, art, a challenge swing (18.5 metres off the ground and you are winched up)! as well as environmental studies, where they learned about the native animals and plants, they also adopted an animal for the stay, who they had to groom, feed and generally look after. If you were one of the lucky school who get to go in the summer, you go surfing and swimming too!! A week later, she was off on a skiing trip to a nearby mountain; she and her school mates had loads of fun as after the skiing there were snow games and sledging.
Kevin’s friend has now been moved from hospital to a rehabilitation centre, he is at the moment in a wheelchair and unable to bear any weight on this spine, he had to go back to the hospital for a routine scan to see how his injuries were healing and if his back was strong enough for him to stand and start physiotherapy. Unfortunately they found that his pelvis was healing 1cm out of alignment, so they are now wanting to break and reset his pelvis, which will then mean another 12 weeks before he can bear weight. He is understandably very depressed about this set back.
Kevin’s cycling club, had an interclub event in a place called Halls Gap, which is the Grampian mountain range in Victoria about 4 hours from our place. We were staying for the weekend; it is a beautiful place with stunning scenery. After racing on the Saturday, where Kevin came sixth, we went back to the cabins we were staying in to have a few beers with the other club members. In the grounds the kangaroos were grazing with joeys in their pouches, they were obviously very used to tourists, allowing you to get very close to them without fear. Holly loved it!! Then on Sunday morning we woke to deer splashing in a nearby lake, they seemed to be having a high old time. Neither Kevin nor any of his team mates did very well in the Sunday race, but the hosts put on a very tasty BBQ in the nearby park for all the entrants and their partners. It was a very unseasonable winter weekend with temps up in the low 20c’s. After the BBQ was over we visited a wildlife park and Holly got to hand feed a wallaby and even give it a tummy rub, much to her delight. So it all made for a great weekend for all. Mind you my camera started to play up again, those of you who are regular readers of my blog might remember it broke down when I was due to go to Sydney in January. It obviously doesn’t approve of travel!!
Lauren had a lucky escape this month having a tyre blow out on the car she was driving, lost control and flipped the car over and down a bank. She was unhurt apart from banging her head on the steering wheel; it makes you aware of just how far away she is when things like this happen. She did have some good news this month; she competed in her first half marathon last week and was first junior over the line (beating the male juniors too) and 5th overall. So she was understandably very pleased with herself and the prize money she won!!
Love Kerry
